A senior Czech intelligence official alleged that Iraqi agents planned to
carry out an attack against the Prague-based headquarters of U.S. government­funded
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Jiri Ruzek, director of the State
Security Service (BIS), told the Czech Service of the BBC that the purpose
of the attack was to terminate the broadcasts of Radio Free Iraq, RFE/RL's
Arabic-language service broadcasting news into Iraq.

Ruzek also confirmed that five Iraqi diplomats had recently been expelled
from the Czech Republic as a result of their intelligence activity. "We
have no new information about a threat against us, but there has been an
ongoing threat since we started broadcasting [to Iraq] in 1998," said Sonia
Winter, an editor at RFE/RL.

Radio Free Iraq was launched by RFE/RL in 1998. During the last two years,
there have been numerous unconfirmed reports that the RFE/RL headquarters
was a potential terrorist target. On April 22, 2001, Czech authorities expelled
Iraqi diplomat Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani for allegedly surveilling
RFE/RL's headquarters as part of a possible terrorist attack on the building.
After September 11, 2001, Czech authorities deployed troops and armored
personnel carriers outside the RFE/RL building as a security precaution.